The last time Jeff Sessions faced a Senate confirmation hearing, Judiciary Committee members in both parties blocked his nomination to be a federal judge after hearing accusations that he had called the NAACP “un-American” and addressed a black lawyer as “boy.”

Thirty years later, Sessions is a senior member of the same panel and established himself as one of the chamber's most conservative members, staking out hard-line opposition to illegal immigration, opposing trade deals and advocating deep spending cuts that at times have chafed fellow Republicans.

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It's an approach that has won the Alabama Republican favor with President-elect Donald Trump, who sources say is considering him for either Defense secretary or attorney general as a reward of his early support during the presidential primary.

Yet if past accusations of racial insensitivity and his unyielding views on immigration come back to haunt Sessions, his confirmation may not be the slam-dunk the Senate often affords to members selected for Cabinet positions. Instead, Trump's critics would have an opening to oppose one of the president-elect's most important personnel decisions, adding to the ongoing furor over Trump's selection of alt-right Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon as a top White House adviser.

“Jeff Sessions, just because he’s a senator, does not mean he doesn’t have any racist intent,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), adding that Sessions follows Trump’s worldview and is “known for his anti-Latino and anti-minority viewpoints.”

Still, Sessions is likely to get some deference from his fellow senators, even those who have criticized him. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has clashed with Sessions on immigration, told reporters Tuesday that he'd back Sessions for a Cabinet spot.

"He was the early, only supporter for Donald Trump ... in the Senate, and I believe that Jeff Sessions has earned the right to serve President Trump at the highest levels," Graham said. "I think he's a good, competent, capable man."

Sessions has denied long accusations of bigotry, telling senators at his 1986 judicial confirmation hearing that "I am not the Jeff Sessions my detractors have tried to create. I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks. I have supported civil rights activities in my state. I have done my job with integrity, equality and fairness for all.”

And his supporters say his clashes with senior Republican leaders on issues such as immigration are one reason his star is now rising.

“Just because the leadership does it or likes it doesn’t mean it’s right,” Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), one of Trump’s earliest congressional backers, said in an interview. “He’s been right on immigration. … It just so happens we now have a president-elect that sees directly eye to eye with what Jeff Sessions always has believed is right.“He’s got a great mix of attributes, and bucking the system is one of them,” Hunter added.

Sessions’ decision in February to endorse Trump — over his fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — put him in a lonely position within the Senate Republican conference as the real estate mogul’s only backer in those early months.

That early loyalty is key to his Cabinet chances now. Sources close to Trump's transition team say Sessions still could decide to become Defense secretary or attorney general. He initially favored the Pentagon, the sources said, but he may be reconsidering because of the prospect of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani heading to the State Department, not the Justice Department.

Trump also named Sessions vice-chair of his transition's executive committee last week.

Sessions' path to the Senate began as a U.S. attorney for Alabama’s Southern District. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated him for a spot on the federal bench, but he hit a roadblock amid accusations from a black former deputy that Sessions had made racially insensitive remarks. Those included accusations that he had told the deputy to "be careful what you say to white folks," and that he said he had been fine with the Ku Klux Klan until he found out its members smoked marijuana, according to New York Times coverage of the confirmation battle.

The opposition, led by then-Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Joe Biden, also raised questions about his prosecution of three civil rights lawyers for voter fraud.

Sessions insisted he was being smeared. But a bipartisan bloc of 10 senators on the Judiciary Committee were not convinced and his nomination was denied.

Sessions continued to serve as a U.S. attorney and then Alabama attorney general before winning a seat in the Senate in 1996, joining the same committee that had blocked his confirmation.

Since then, the 69-year-old chair of Judiciary's Immigration subcommittee has been comfortable ruffling feathers within his own party, particularly on immigration and trade.

During a 2015 immigration fight over Homeland Security funding, he clashed with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on whether to separate the must-pass funding bill from efforts to kill President Barack Obama’s protections for undocumented immigrants. Sessions lost that battle but said the confrontation was “absolutely” worth it, calling himself “a minority in the U.S. Senate … in questioning whether we should reward people who came into the country illegally with jobs that Americans would like to do.”

“But with the American people, I am in a distinct majority,” Sessions added — words that now sound distinctly Trumpian.

Sessions also led the charge in the Senate against the bipartisan 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, an attempt at a compromise that ultimately passed the upper chamber but failed to move in the House. And this year, Sessions teed up another immigration fight pitting him against Senate appropriators, angry that last year’s omnibus funding bill essentially quadrupled the number of visas for low-skilled workers.

Last December, Sessions railed on the Senate floor against a nonbinding amendment by fellow Judiciary Committee member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that said the U.S. “must not bar individuals from entering into the United States based on their religion.” He was one of four Republicans in the Judiciary Committee to oppose the measure, whose supporters intended it as a rebuke of Trump's proposed ban on Muslim entry to the U.S.

Sessions denounced the amendment as "a move toward the ratification of the idea that global migration is a 'human right' and a civil right."

"Though it appears that day will not be today, perhaps we should have a conversation soon about how to help the tens of millions of Americans who are only just barely scraping by," added Sessions, whose remarks were featured prominently in a Breitbart story on the amendment.

When it comes to the defense budget, Sessions’ positions clash with Republican defense hawks on the Armed Services Committee — as well as Trump himself, who has advocated a military buildup that comes with a price tag of $55 billion or more annually, according to defense analysts.

Sessions’ budget stance is “at odds with people like other Republicans in the Senate Armed Services Committee in particular,” said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“He has not been one of the Republicans who is willing to write a blank check for the Department of Defense,” Harrison said.

While Sessions has stuck to his conservative principles, he is also known for his personal conviviality, which has helped make him a force to be reckoned with in the clubby world of the U.S. Senate despite his hard-line views.

"I am one of his champions from the day he arrived at the doorstep of the Senate," said former Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican who chaired the Armed Services Committee.

He recalled "the junior man with a big smile on his face. That smile has been one of his hallmarks. He always seemed to me to have a smile on his face."

Warner also never remembers Sessions holding a grudge about his 1986 experience before the Judiciary Committee.

"He had the courage to come back and take on the very body that denied him the chance to serve his country in a federal judgeship,” Warner, who endorsed Hillary Clinton, said in an interview. “I never heard him talk about that in any sense of retribution against the body. It was history."